Dear GPP friends and supporters,
I hope that you are all well and that your 2010 has gotten off to a great start. It certainly has for GPP. After months of planning the Project has finally launched in the UK with a series of incredible presentations! 
The first event of the UK’s 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation to the UK public was at the One Young World Summit in London at the beginning of February. It was an incredible honour to present alongside Bishop Desmond Tutu, an absolute hero of those working to end poverty. It was my first time meeting Bishop Tutu and it was lovely to speak in Zulu with him. One of the most profound things he said to me was when he told be about his involvement in the apartheid movement. In his words, he didn’t mind when he was attacked because he had signed up for the struggle, but it was very difficult when they hurt his family, his son in particular. I was moved by the lengths that he went to and sacrifices he and his family had to make along the way.
The presentation at One Young World went so well and received the only full standing ovation of the day from a packed audience of 1000 young representatives. We also received great feedback through all of our digital channels like twitter and facebook. It was a wonderfully affirming way to kick-start operations as we geared up for larger launch events and awesome to meet people from all around the world who want to bring GPP to their respective communities.
The second big event was the launch of our Church presentation at St Pauls’ Cathedral in London to an audience of 1000 people including Mr Douglas Alexander MP and the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu. Once again thanks and congratulations must go to Elisha London for setting up such an amazing opportunity for GPP. Having the opportunity to present in such a stunning venue has been unparalleled. The highlight was definitely when Arshbishop Sentamu broke bread emulating an act of Mother Teresa’s to symbolise the responsibility we all have to our brother and sister.
 The final launch event was our presentation at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge. Cambridge is really where it all began in the UK and is the town I’ve called home for the past year and a half. It really was the best example of what GPP is all about because a group of volunteers worked tirelessly to pull together an audience of 1000 people demonstrating what grassroots movements can do to mobilise and engage an audience (it should be noted the population of Cambridge is just over 100,000). The highlight of the night for me was when the Master of St John’s brought along the candlesticks that William Wilberforce donated to the College when he was an undergraduate. The Master lit the candles in ceremony and they remained lit for the duration of the presentation. As you will know if you’ve seen 1.4 Billion Reasons, Wilberforce is a man who features prominently and is a personal hero of mine. It was a deeply touching symbol and was capped off with an amazing rendition of Amazing Grace by ‘The Gents” who created an arrangement specifically for the event.
It really was one of our best presentation to date. I’d like to make special mention of Laura O’Reilly who led the Cambridge team and was responsible for organising a remarkable evening. Thanks so much Laura!
We also took some time last month to meet with some of GPP’s Global advisors at St John’s College Cambridge for a strategic planning review of GPP operations for 2010-2011. It was an awesome few days with a group of very dedicated individuals and I look forward to operationalising the work we laid out over those few days. Thanks to Clive Burcham, Michael Smellie, Lisa Fox, Laurie Lee, Wei Soo, Simon Moss and Elisha London who travelled long distances to meet with us.
Some points in summary that I would like to share with you are:
- The plans to roll-out in the USA from mid-2010 are taking shape!
- Financial sustainability for Australian and International teams is a key priority.
- The GPP Film – Clive and the team at TCO have been working hard. Watch this space!
- Communications strategy for Australia, UK and USA – we are moving to centralise all communications and accelerate our digital strategy.
- 2010 Global Strategy – we are bringing together a plan to support our country teams in a unified way
We’ve got a lot of exciting campaigns and projects coming up this year and we can’t wait to share them with you. Make sure you keep tuning into the website and blogs for updates.
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